Part 4: How old is old when we’re talking coffee shops? (20th Century)

By Perry Luckett, CoffeeMan1

Today, I’m finishing our coffee house tour covering four centuries of historic and often beautiful cafes. The 20th Century includes three distinguished establishments with about a century of continuous service in Prague (Czech Republic), Lisbon (Portugal), and New York (USA).

Prague coffee café also covered women’s need for a public meeting place

Café Louvre, Prague (Czech Republic). As the café’s website says: “The doors of the Café Louvre first opened in 1902. Since that time, history has marched through Národní Třída (National Avenue), and cozy friendships, associations, and novels have been created at its café tables. Though the pace of the times has quickened, we still insist on preserving the old café traditions. So even today you can still enjoy the unique atmosphere of a historical, grand café, as Franz Kafka, Albert Einstein or T. G. Masaryk knew it.”  [CLW]

Café Louvre in Prague is a Parisian style café and billiard hall that proudly declares itself to be the crowning jewel of Prague café culture. It’s one of the few great cafés that have survived and has been restored to some of its original grandeur. Café society flourished in Prague and many other Czech towns and cities during a golden era before and after the World War I. Hundreds of such cafés were open, with the latest addition often trying to outdo its predecessors in luxury and splendour. [CJ]

Café Louvre exterior. DIMSFIKAS / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

At its opening in 1902, Café Louvre set itself apart with several innovations. For example, it was the largest café in Prague, with more than 800 rooms. It also was the first café to be lit by electric bulbs instead of candles. On the social front, it took the lead on women’s emancipation in becoming the first ladies’ salon—a public place where women could get together. Until then, ladies met in home salons, only attending cafes or restaurants with a male companion or associate. Café Louvre soon became a meeting place for intellectuals, artists, and writers, as well. Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Albert Einstein, and Karel Čapek were among the most famous.  [CJ]

The café fell into disuse after World War II and had become a space for offices by the end of the communist era in 1989. Restoration in the 1990s was very expensive and was financed by high-interest loans of nearly $8 million, but the Café Louvre eventually reopened in 1992. While seeking to maintain the flavor of the past, the café is now much smaller than the original. The current manager says the cafe’s opening was accompanied by a surge of enthusiasm and anticipation. Although building clientele enough to keep it going took about three years, [CJ] it now has become a popular tourist destination that serves about 1,000 people a day.

Café Louvre interior. Øyvind Holmstad / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Café Louvre is open daily for breakfast, offering a broad selection of dishes, along with teas, coffee, hot chocolate, and other cozy beverages. From lunchtime to evening, vegetarian dishes, other light meals, and salads are gracefully presented by waiters dressed in traditional French café clothes. [PE] The goulash in bread is delicious, but freshly made cakes and pastries are the main attraction. As in most places in Prague, beer flows heavily, and the local Czech brew on sale at Café Louvre is as good as you will find anywhere. [CLW]

Art-Deco coffee shop fuels the cozy Chiado district

A Brasileira, Lisbon (Portugal). Adriano Telles opened the A Brasileira on November 19, 1905 to sell genuine Brazilian coffee from the State of Minas Gerais. The people of Lisbon didn’t appreciate this product at the time, so Telles had to promote his product with creative marketing. He offered each shopper who bought a kilogram of ground coffee a free cup of coffee—in this case, a small cup of strong coffee similar to espresso called the "bica."  The founder, who lived in Brazil and imported his products, had no problem importing coffee, goiabada (sweet guava), tapioca, spices, tea, flour, wine, and olive oils to support his business. [Wiki]

Manuel Joaquim Norte Júnior (1878-1962) remodeled A Brasileira in 1907 to provide a café. With the establishment of the First Portuguese Republic in 1910, the Brasileira began to draw heavy traffic. In these early years many intellectuals, artists, and literary writers started walking through its doors. [JK]  United by the poet-General Henrique Rosa, they formed Grupo de Orfeu in 1915 and established the magazine Orpheu, which introduced modernism to the arts and letters of Portugal. [LG]

A Brasileira exterior. Yusuke Kawasaki from Tokyo, Japan / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Norte remodeled A Brasileira again in 1922 to focus on selling coffee and other drinks. Architect José Pacheco finished the 1922 design in Art Deco-style, with a green and gold entrance, and an interior that included mirrored walls, brass fittings, a long oak bar, and wooden booths. Pacheco also fostered the work of many Portuguese painters, and A Brasileira houses 11 famous paintings in an area nicknamed “the museum.” [LG]

The building’s narrow façade includes many polychromatic elements: an arched cement façade with inlaid windows, with two reclined figures on either end of the curves; a geometric, cornice-like entranceway with three separate double doors fronting onto Rua Garrett; and ornate handles and fixtures. Below the boilerplate, in relief, is the figure of a man taking a coffee, surrounded by curvilinear flourishments. [Wiki]

A Brasileira interior. Scalleja [2] / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

A Brasileira was a favored haunt of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, as well as writers Aquilino Ribeiro and Alfredo Pimenta. Pessoa regularly enjoyed absinthe and a sweet bica while he continuously smoked, read, or wrote. In 1988 sculptor Lagoa Henriques created a bronze statue of Pessoa that has become a popular part of the café’s patio. The University of Lisbon's Faculdade de Belas-Artes (School of Fine Arts) is within the Chiado district, so its 1,300 students pass by the quarter regularly, competing with tourists for open-air tables.

A Brasileira is now very popular with tourists, who enjoy sipping “dark tar” after meals or watching people over a beer. Some say the large portions are worth the patio prices, despite less-than-reliable service. Those who don’t agree can find discounted prices in the basement. [JK]  Yelp reviews are mostly middle-of-the-road, mentioning high prices and passable food but castigating the poor service—especially on the patio.

Coffee and a cozy shop in Greenwich Village—Italian style

Caffè Reggio (New York City, 1927). This small Greenwich Village coffee house was home to the first espresso machine in the United States. [Beanbox]  Owner Domenico Parisi’s vision was to introduce Americans to an alternative style of coffee drink by producing delicious, authentic Italian cappuccinos. [SP]  

La Pavoni espresso machine at Café Reggio. Marjory Collins / Public domain

Parisi’s venture into the coffee industry began humbly. He owned and operated a barbershop in New York City but began serving espresso to clients waiting for a haircut or a shave. The espresso drew more and more customers, eventually spurring Parisi to convert from barber to barista. Committed to crafting a genuine, high-quality Italian beverage, he spent more than $1,000 (about $14,770 in 2020 dollars) to import an espresso machine from Italy. [SP]

Café Reggio interior. Joe Mabel / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

By the mid-1950s the Italian “La Pavoni” espresso machine, built in 1902, began offering espresso made the Italian way to a clientele including the Beat poets, Bob Dylan, and the 1987 Nobel Prize winning poet Joseph Brodsky. The original machine, an ornate brass-decorated beauty, still holds a place of pride at Cafe Reggio’s today. [Baskerville]  The faded “plaques, medallions, and fly-specked miniatures” that characterized the interior are still visible today, which may explain its small cameo in the Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis. [JK]

Café Reggio exterior (1). File:Caffe Reggio NYC 2015 (1).jpg

In fact, Caffe Reggio has appeared in several classic films after the Cavallacci family acquired it in 1955 (they’ve been running it ever since).  The Godfather used the café as a scene location or filming backdrop, and President John F. Kennedy delivered a rousing campaign speech in front of the shop in 1959.  Contemporary visitors to Caffè Reggio will find such artifacts as an original painting from the Caravaggio school, a ceiling fan from the movie Casablanca, a bench that once belonged to the Florentine nobles of the House of Medici, and the original espresso machine Parisi bought in 1927. [Parker]

Though we can’t rival these historic shops in longevity, Koffee Kompanions is equally committed to design and quality. Our products have kept coffee or tea cozy hot for our customers since 1998. Come see us at www.koffeekompanions.com for the best French press cozy, teapot cozy, cup wrap, cup cap (lid), or ice cream pint koozie—they make your beverage drinking or ice cream eating a pleasure.

Resources:

“A Brasileira: Pessoa’s Café,” LisbonGuru.com, https://bit.ly/3em36cx, (date unknown), 2020.  [LG]

Peter Baskerville, The world's most historic coffee houses, https://bit.ly/2xsn19P, Feb 14, 2013.  [PB]

Beanbox.com, “The 5 Oldest Coffee Houses in the World,” https://bit.ly/2xrHvQ0, date unknown.  [BB]

“Café A Brasileira,” Wikipedia, https://bit.ly/2YlwutZ, February 18, 2020. [Wiki]

“Café Louvre,” Czechtourism.com, https://bit.ly/2NiZFHK, 2020.  [CT]

“Café Louvre,” Prague Experience.com, https://bit.ly/3fLrMM6, date unknown.  [PE]

Café Louvre website, “The Lovely Cafee House with a Beautiful History,” https://bit.ly/3djUwKg, 2018.  [CLW]

Chris Johnstone, “The Café Louvre: a surviving jewel from Prague’s café heyday,” https://bit.ly/2zRzR2t, Radio Prague International, August 25, 2010.  [CJ]

Jill Krasny, “12 Stunning Cafés Every History Buff Needs to Visit,” https://bit.ly/3bgGadl, March 22, 2017.  [JK]

Samuel Parker, “The Five Oldest Coffee Shops in the World,” https://bit.ly/2KcdhDc , Feb 11, 2020.  [SP]